Weekend Event Planner

These are the 11 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

UPDATE: This piece originally included the Art of Rap Festival at Gexa Energy Pavilion, which has been cancelled. Refunds for all tickets for the festival will be available at point of purchase.

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This weekend is going to be an emotional one in Dallas. One week after the tragic events of July 7, there's a memorial honoring the five fallen police officers and celebrating the freedom that they and others like them afford to us on a daily basis. The fact that the two can coexist is a testament to what makes Dallas great.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Sunday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, July 14

Bastille Day Celebrations
Anyone who knows and loves the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff is used to it hosting the annual Bastille on Bishop, a chance for people to celebrate French culture by indulging in wine, food, and other activities. This year, a second event, Bastille Day Celebration in Dallas Arts District, is taking place the following day, and it coincides with the three art museums opening up their doors for free events on the third Friday of the month.

2016 Asian Film Festival of Dallas
The Asian Film Festival of Dallas celebrates its 15th year with 33 feature-film screenings and six shorts over the course of eight days at Angelika Film Center in Dallas. The festival boasts its first Iranian film this year, as well as films from the U.S., China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. Organizers will be showcasing past film festival favorites from its first, fifth, and 10th years.

Dallas Sing/Dallas Strong
Two days after President Obama delivered a stirring address at a private service at Meyerson Symphony Center, the public is invited to the same location to honor the lives of the five fallen police officers through song. Dallas singers Denise Lee, Paul Mason, and Liz Mikel; local opera star Ava Pine; and members of the Credo Choir, Turtle Creek Chorale, and Dallas Symphony Chorus are going to be among the performers at the free event.

Pegasus Theatre presents It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder!
If you've never seen Pegasus Theatre's patented Living Black & White style of theater, you owe it to yourself to go at least once. Using a combination of lighting, makeup, and other tricks, the actors look as if they've stepped out of a 1930s movie. The latest Harry Hunsacker adventure has him trying to track down someone who's been knocking off department store Santas. The play runs at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson through August 7.

Friday, July 15

Dallas CASA presents 2016 Parade of Playhouses
The annual Parade of Playhouses at NorthPark Center features imaginative playhouses designed, built, and donated to Dallas CASA by local designers, architects, and builders. All playhouses are available to win by raffle at the end of the event, which goes through July 31. All proceeds from the raffle benefit abused and neglected children served by Dallas CASA.

Weezer and Panic! at the Disco in concert
Weezer and Panic! at the Disco are co-headlining a concert at Gexa Energy Pavilion, in support of their respective new albums. Weezer put out their 10th album, the so-called White Album, on April 1, while Panic! at the Disco released their sixth album, Death Of A Bachelor, earlier in the year. Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness is the featured special guest.

Uptown Players presents It's Only A Play
Uptown Players continues its 2016 season with the regional premiere of Terrence McNally's 2014-15 Broadway hit, It’s Only a Play, through July 31 at Kalita Humphreys Theater. The play centers around a group of actors, producers, and other theater people nervously waiting for the late-night reviews of their latest production. Hilarity ensues as each person reacts in different ways.

Saturday, July 16

Weird Al Yankovic in concert
Singer Weird Al Yankovic has been entertaining the masses with comedy songs for well over 30 years, so he knows when he's got a good thing going. Less than a year after playing at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie, he returns to play for his fans yet again at Winspear Opera House, as part of his Mandatory Fun Tour.

Sunday, July 17

Texas Theatre and Majestic Theatre present Rock 'N' Roll Summer Series
The music film collaboration between Texas Theatre and Majestic Theatre continues this week at Texas Theatre, with a screening of Gimme Shelter. Not only is the documentary about the Rolling Stones one of the most famous of all time, as it details their fateful concert at Altamont, but it was also the first documentary of note from the Maysles brothers, who went on to make many other acclaimed documentaries.

Deep Blue Something in concert
If you were in high school or college in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the early 1990s, the band Deep Blue Something definitely has meaning for you. The Denton band hit it big with their hit, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," but unfortunately, superstardom did not follow. After a 14-year hiatus, the band is back with an EP, Locust House; they'll play songs from that and other albums at Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts in Arlington.

Bastille Day celebrations take place in the Bishop Arts District on July 14 and in the Dallas Arts District on July 15.

Photo by Elliott Munoz

Bastille Day celebrations take place in the Bishop Arts District on July 14 and in the Dallas Arts District on July 15.

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Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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